Shawn B.

$45/hour

New Orleans, LA 70119

About Shawn

Bio

I was born in Mississippi and raised in New Orleans, where I began taking private guitar lessons at the age of 10. For the past 7 years, I've traveled all over the country performing both solo and accompanying other acts on lead/rhythm guitar. I've performed at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Montana Folk Festival and Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, Texas. I have played almost every style of venue, from the street corners of New Orleans, to the bars of Los Angeles and Seattle, to wedding...

I was born in Mississippi and raised in New Orleans, where I began taking private guitar lessons at the age of 10. For the past 7 years, I've traveled all over the country performing both solo and accompanying other acts on lead/rhythm guitar. I've performed at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Montana Folk Festival and Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, Texas. I have played almost every style of venue, from the street corners of New Orleans, to the bars of Los Angeles and Seattle, to wedding events and radio stations including KPFT Houston and WWOZ New Orleans. Throughout all the years of performing, I constantly strive to learn about all the different facets that make up the Americana gem.
I take a different approach for each student depending on what they would like to learn. I specialize in electric jump-blues, finger picking, acoustic blues/country/folk, travis-picking and slide. I base my music theory guidance off of the Jazzmaster Cookbook by Jim Grantham, which is a textbook I recommend to all students regardless of the style of music they are attempting to master. I believe that a knowledge of how music works along with proper ear-training will allow the students' personal style to develop, & the Jazzmaster Cookbook is a great guide for navigating through both of those areas.

A typical lesson with me is all about the 3 T's: Tone, Tunes, and Timing. These 3 T's are found in every style of music, and developing them will help in the overall grand scheme of things. Often, working with a specific tune is a great way to develop desired techniques, so typical lessons include learning and playing tunes together with proper tone and solid time. Students wishing to learn theory and the entire fret-board will learn chords, scales and progressions and transpose them to different keys each week, so a typical lesson often involves ear training by applying theory to all 12 keys.

My ideal student is a person, no matter what age, who has a desire to learn how to play the guitar and the discipline to spend the time working at the craft. I look forward to meeting you and helping you begin or continue this lifelong music journey.

Schedule

Subjects

Music

Guitar

I have been studying privately and with many teachers over my 16 years experience playing the guitar. I have taught several students, including my own father, who I began teaching at age 12. My teaching method is based on The Jazzmaster Cookbook, where I utilize the method of teaching with the 3 T's; Tunes, tone, and timing. I also use the 8 tools of studying a tune, which are #1 root position chord studies, #2 inverted chord studies, #3 guide tone lines, #4 guide tone line chord studies, #5 tonal center chord studies, #6 melodic chord studies, #7 root position scales, #8 running mode or continuous scales. Along with these tools, I share different chord and scale patterns to internalize each chord and scale and work on ear training techniques by transposing all study material to all 12 keys, which not only train the ear but reinforce knowledge of the complete fret-board. Most importantly, I teach all of this with patience, joy and enthusiasm!